Method, system, and apparatus for page sizing extension

ABSTRACT

A method, system, and apparatus may initialize a fixed plurality of page table entries for a fixed plurality of pages in memory, each page having a first size, wherein a linear address for each page table entry corresponds to a physical address and the fixed plurality of pages are aligned. A bit in each of the page table entries for the aligned pages may be set to indicate whether or not the fixed plurality of pages is to be treated as one combined page having a second page size larger than the first page size. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Many processors may make use of virtual or demand-paged memory schemes,where sections of a program's execution environment may be mapped intofixed sized segments or frames of physical memory as needed. Virtualmemory schemes may allow the use of a physical memory that may be muchsmaller in size than the linear address space of the processor and mayalso provide a mechanism for memory protection so that multiple tasks orprograms sharing the same physical memory do not interfere with eachother. The effectiveness of caching techniques employed to facilitatetranslation of a linear or virtual address to physical address may belimited by the page or frame sizes used in some computing systems.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter regarded as the invention is particularly pointed outand distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification.The invention, however, both as to organization and method of operation,together with objects, features and advantages thereof, may best beunderstood by reference to the following detailed description when readwith the accompanied drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a computing system according to anembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of a computing system according to anembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of an address translation scheme toan embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 4 shows the format of paging structure entries according to anembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 5 depicts a method for enabling a larger page size from a fixednumber of smaller pages according to an embodiment of the invention.

It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration,elements shown in the drawings have not necessarily been drawnaccurately or to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of theelements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity orseveral physical components included in one functional block or element.Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals may berepeated among the drawings to indicate corresponding or analogouselements. Moreover, some of the blocks depicted in the drawings may becombined into a single function.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are setforth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention.However it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art thatthe present invention may be practiced without these specific details.In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components andcircuits have not been described in detail so as not to obscure thepresent invention.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the followingdiscussions, it is appreciated that throughout the specificationdiscussions utilizing terms such as “processing,” “computing,”“calculating,” “determining,” or the like, refer to the action and/orprocesses of a computer or computing system, or similar electroniccomputing device, that manipulate and/or transform data represented asphysical, such as electronic, quantities within the computing system'sregisters and/or memories into other data similarly represented asphysical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers orother such information storage, transmission or display devices. Inaddition, the term “plurality” may be used throughout the specificationto describe two or more components, devices, elements, parameters andthe like.

Embodiments of the invention provide a method for generating or enablingthe use of a larger page in the physical or system memory of a computingsystem by aligning a fixed number of pages having a page size smallerthan that of the page being enabled. A fixed plurality of page tableentries for a fixed plurality of pages in a memory, each page having afirst page size, may be initialized. A linear address for each page ineach page table entry may correspond to a physical address. The fixedplurality of pages may be aligned. A bit or flag in each of the pagetable entries of the fixed plurality of pages may be set to indicatewhether or not the fixed plurality of pages is to be treated as onecombined page having a second page size larger than the first page size.In some embodiments, the second page size may be 64 Kbytes andgenerating from 16 aligned 4 Kbyte pages. Other sizes may be used.

Reference is now made to FIG. 1, a schematic illustration of a computingsystem 100 capable of enabling a larger page size from a fixed number ofaligned smaller pages according to embodiments of the invention.Computing system 100 may be or include, for example, a personalcomputer, a desktop computer, a mobile computer, a laptop computer, anotebook computer, a terminal, a workstation, a server computer, anetwork device, or other suitable computing device. Although theinvention is not limited in this respect, computing system 100 mayinclude a processor 102 that may access one or memories via a pagingsystem and may operate in accordance with embodiments of the invention.In addition, computing system 100 may include a system memory 104 and anonvolatile memory 106 which may be coupled to processor 102 via bus 120and bus 130 respectively. Other components or logical elements may alsobe included in computing system 100 such as for example a peripheral busor an input/output device. Alternative configurations or topologies mayalso be included such as for example a common bus for coupling processor102, system memory 104, nonvolatile memory 106, and possibly othercomponents or chip sets.

As used herein, processor 102 may be or include a single integratedcircuit that includes one or more execution cores. Each execution coremay include logic for executing instructions and dedicated resources asneeded for each core to execute instructions individually. Additional ormultiple processors may be used.

System memory 104 may be or include, for example, any type of memory,such as static or dynamic random access memory. System memory 104 may beused to store instructions to be executed by and data to be operated onby processor 102, or any such information in any form, such as forexample operating system software, application software, or user data.

System memory 104 or a portion of system memory 104 (also referred toherein as physical memory) may be divided into a plurality of frames orother sections, wherein each frame may include a predetermined number ofmemory locations, e.g. a fixed size block of addresses. The setup orallocation of system memory 104 into these frames may be accomplished byfor example an operating system or other unit or software capable ofmemory management. The memory locations of each frame may have physicaladdresses that correspond to linear addresses that may be generated byfor example processor 102. In order to access the correct physicaladdress, the linear address may be translated to a correspondingphysical address. This translation process may be referred to herein aspaging or a paging system. In some embodiments of the present invention,the number of linear addresses may be different, e.g. larger than thoseavailable in physical memory. The address conversion information of alinear address may be stored in a page table entry. In addition, a pagetable entry may also include information concerning whether the memorypage has been written to, when the page was last accessed, what kind ofprocesses (e.g., user mode, supervisor mode) may read and write thememory page, and whether the memory page should be cached. Otherinformation may also be included.

In one embodiment, pages in memory are of three sizes such as forexample 4 Kbytes, 64 Kbytes and 4 Mbytes, and different parts of memorymay be assigned to each of these page sizes. Other numbers of pagessizes and allocations of memory are possible. Enabling a 64 Kbyte pagesize may provide additional granularity for an operating system and/ormemory management software in utilizing a limited amount of physicalmemory.

Nonvolatile memory 106 may be or include, for example, any type ofnonvolatile or persistent memory, such as a disk drive,semiconductor-based programmable read only memory or flash memory.Nonvolatile memory 106 may be used to store any instructions orinformation that is to be retained while computing system 100 is notpowered on. In alternative embodiments, any memory beyond system memory(e.g. not necessarily non-volatile) may be used for storage of data andinstructions.

Reference is now made to FIG. 2, a schematic illustration of a computingsystem 100 according to an embodiment of the invention. As part of atranslation caching scheme, processor 102 may include a translationlookaside buffer (TLB) for each page size in system memory 104.Incorporating TLBs into processor 102 may enhance access speed, althoughin some alternative embodiments these TLBs may be external to processor102. TLBs may be used in address translation for accessing a pagingstructure 108 stored in system memory 104 such as for example a pagetable. Alternatively, paging structure 108 may exist elsewhere such asin a data cache hierarchy. The embodiment of FIG. 2 shows three TLB's, 4Kbyte TLB 110, 64 Kbyte TLB 112, and 4 Mbyte TLB 114, although otherTLB's corresponding to the various page sizes present in system memory104 may also be used.

As used herein, a TLB may be or include a cache or other storagestructure which holds translation table entries recently used byprocessor 102 that map virtual memory pages (e.g. having linear ornon-physical addresses) to physical memory pages (e.g., frames). In theembodiment of FIG. 2, each TLB may be set-associative and may holdentries corresponding to the respective page size indicated.Alternatively, a single fully associative TLB for all three page sizesmay also be implemented. Other numbers of page sizes with correspondingdifferent TLB entries may be used. Further different TLBs may be used tocache different information such as for example instruction TLBs anddata TLBs.

Although TLBs are used herein to denote such caches for addresstranslation, the invention is not limited in this respect. Other cachesand cache types may also be used. In some embodiments, the entries ineach TLB may include the same information as a corresponding page tableentry with an additional tag, e.g. information corresponding to thelinear addressing bits needed for an address translation. Thus, eachentry in a TLB may be an individual translation as referenced by forexample the page number of a linear address. For example for a 4 KbyteTLB entry, the tag may include bits 12 and higher of the linear address.The entry in a TLB may contain the page frame, e.g. the physical addressin the page table entry used to translate the page number. Otherinformation such as for example “dirty bit” status may also be included.

Processor 102 may cache a TLB entry at the time it translates a pagenumber to a page frame. The information cached in the TLB entry may bedetermined at that time. If software such as for example a runningapplication modifies the relevant paging-structure entries after thistranslation, the TLB entry may not reflect the contents of thepaging-structure entries.

When a linear address requires translation such as for example when anoperating program must access memory for an instruction fetch or datafetch, the memory management part of operating system software executingor circuitry operating on processor 102 or elsewhere in computing system100 may search for the translation first in all or any of the TLBs. Ifthe translation is stored in a TLB, a TLB hit may be generated, and theappropriate TLB may provide the translation. In the event that processor102 can't find an entry in any of TLBs, a TLB miss may be generated. Inthis instance, a page table walker may be invoked to access the pagetables and provide the translation. As used herein, a page table walkeris any technique or unit for providing a translation when anotheraddress translation unit (such as a TLB) cannot provide the translationsuch as for example by accessing the paging structure hierarchy inmemory. Techniques for implementing such a page table walker that canaccommodate the page sizes as described herein for embodiments of theinvention are known in the art.

In one embodiment, the number of effective page sizes available in asystem may be increased while maintaining compatibility with an existingarchitecture such as for example the Intel IA-32 architecturemanufactured by Intel Corporation, by allowing multiple pages having acertain page size to be combined into a larger page. Providing a thirdor additional page size such as 64 Kbytes, in between a small page sizesuch as 4 Kbytes and a larger one such as 2 or 4 Mbytes may reduce theTLB miss rate encountered for the smaller page size allocation, e.g. 4Kbytes, while providing a higher granularity than that of the larger 4Mbyte page size allocations. While one embodiment discussed includesincreasing the range of page sizes from two to three, other numbers ofeffective page sizes may be achieved.

Reference is now made to FIG. 3, a schematic illustration of an addresstranslation scheme or mapping 300 for accessing 4 or 64 Kbyte pages in aphysical memory with a 64 bit linear address such as linear address 301according to an embodiment of the invention. The address translationscheme of FIG. 3 for a linear address 301 may have a configuration inwhich four kinds of tables or paging structures—page map level (PML) 4table 330, page directory pointer (PDP) table 340, page directory 350,and page table 360—are connected by pointers or links. The hierarchy ofthese tables may be structured with PML 4 table 330 at the highestlevel, followed by PDP table 340, page directory 350, and page table 360at the lowest level. For the embodiments of FIG. 3, at least someportion of memory 104 may be divided into 4 or 64 Kbyte pages, althoughother fixed page sizes may be used and other numbers of page sizes maybe used. Further, in the embodiment of FIG. 3, all paging structures mayinclude 512 entries having a length of 8 bytes, e.g. each entry is 64bits. Such 64 bit entries may be used by for example a computing systemimplementing an Intel IA-32e processor architecture.

In one embodiment linear address 301 may include five sets of bits: PML4 table bits 310, PDP table bits 312, page directory bits 314, pagetable bits 316, and offset bits 318. Each of these sets of bits mayprovide an offset used in translating linear address 301 to acorresponding physical address. Other bit mapping hierarchies may alsobe used, and other sets of bits may be used.

A control register 320 or another memory space may store or contain thephysical address of PML 4 table 320. An entry in PML 4 table 330 such asPML 4 entry 332 may be selected or determined by for example bits 47:39,e.g. PML 4 table bits 310 of linear address 301. PML 4 entry 332 may beused for all linear addresses in the 512-Gbyte region of linearaddresses with the same value in bits 47:39. Here and elsewhere herein,other specific locations may be used.

The bits of PML 4 entry 332 may be used as an offset from the baseaddress of PML 4 table 330 to access PDP table 340. Specifically, PML 4entry 332 may contain the physical address of PDP table 340. A PDP tableentry 342 may be selected or determined by for example bits 38:30 oflinear address 301, e.g. PDP table bits 312. PDP table entry 342 may beused for all linear addresses in the 1-Gbyte region of linear addresseswith the same value in bits 47:30.

The bits or information of PDP table entry 342 may be used to accesspage directory 350. For example, PDP table entry 342 may contain thephysical address of page directory 350. A page directory entry (PDE) 352may be selected or determined by for example bits 29:21 of linearaddress 301, e.g. page directory bits 314. PDE 352 may be used for alllinear addresses in the 2-Mbyte region of linear addresses with the samevalue in bits 47:21.

The bits of PDE 352 may be used to access page table 360. For example,PDE 352 may contain the physical address of page table 360. A page tableentry 362 may be selected or determined by for example bits 20:12 oflinear address 301, e.g. page table bits 316. Page table entry 362 maybe used for all linear addresses in the 4-Kbyte region of linearaddresses with the same value in bits 47:12.

The bits of page table entry 362 may be used to access a page 370. Forexample, page table entry 362 may contain the physical address of page370. A physical address 372 may be selected or determined by bits forexample 11:0 of linear address 301, e.g. page table bits 318.

In addition to bits used for physical addressing, each entry in a pagingstructure may contain bits that control the translation process and howlinear addresses may be used. For example, a bit 5 may be set to 1 inall paging-structure entries to indicate that a linear address is beingused to access memory. A bit 6 may be set to 1 in a page table entry 362when a linear address is dirty, e.g. has been used to write to thecorresponding location in physical memory. In some embodiments, if thedirty bit of any page table entry of one of the 16 aligned 4 Kbyte pagesis set, the operating system, execution management, or memory managementsoftware may assume that all 16 pages have been changed, e.g. are dirty.

To distinguish the newly created second page size from the page sizefrom which it was constructed (such as for example a 64 Kbyte page froma 4 Kbyte page) in for example a page table entry 362, a flag or bit fora page size (e.g., 64 Kbyte) such as bit or flag 449 may also beincluded in page table entry format 440. Setting this flag such as forexample by setting the bit equal to one may indicate the presence of a64 Kbyte page in memory beginning at the page base address indicated byaddress field 441.

Setting bit 51 may also indicate that a page table entry should becached using a 64 Kbyte TLB such as for example TLB 112. If the bit isnot set, the page table entry may be cached using a different size, suchas a 4 Kbyte TLB such as TLB 110.

In some embodiments, a page table walk in a computing system using thenew page size may proceed in the same manner as a page table walk forthe smaller page size in a computing system not employing someembodiments of the present invention with the additional operation ofdetermining page size of the page table entry, the new, e.g. larger pagesize or the smaller page size. For example, when bit 51 is set and a TLBmiss occurs, a four level page table walk may be performed as known inthe art and implemented for example in an Intel 64 (IA-32e)architecture. This four level page table walk may proceed or include thesame steps as may be performed for all four levels of the paginghierarchy for a 4 Kbyte TLB miss in a computing system without a 64Kbyte page size. However, in some embodiments, at the fourth level, anadditional operation in the page table walk to determine the state ofbit 51 may be performed. This additional operation may allow processor102 to determine if the page being accessed is for example either a 4Kbyte or a 64 Kbyte page size. For example, if bit 51 is set, the pagesize may be 64 Kbytes. Other or additional operations may also beincluded in the page table walk. Further, alternative page table walksor search techniques may also be used.

Reference is now made to FIG. 4 which shows the format of pagingstructure entries according to an embodiment of the invention includingPML4 table entry format 410, PDP table entry format 420, PDE format 430,and page table entry format 440. These entry formats may be used forexample in the corresponding entries of FIG. 3, e.g. PML4 entry 332, PDPtable entry 342, PDE 352, and page table entry 362. Other or differentformats may be used.

In each entry of FIG. 4 there is an address field (411, 421, 431, and441) of bits 32 to 12 that may point to a head, e.g. base address of alower-level table or page. Each entry may further include a P bit orflag (412, 422, 432, and 442) that may be maintained by the operatingsystem of computer system 100 or other executive software. In someembodiments, the P flag may indicate whether the page or page tablebeing pointed to by the entry is currently loaded in physical memory.For example, if the flag is set, the page may be in physical memory andaddress translation may be carried out. However, if the flag is clear,e.g. not set, the page may not be in memory. In some embodiments settinga bit or flag may include setting the bit or flag's value equal to one,while clearing a bit or flag may be setting the bit or flag's valueequal to zero, although other terminology and values may be used (forexample, since the choice of 1 and 0 in some cases is arbitrary, thismay be reversed). If the processor attempts to access the page, a pagefault exception may be generated. Upon occurrence of a page faultexception, the operating system or execution management software maycopy the page from nonvolatile (e.g., disk) memory 106 into system(physical) memory 104, load the page address into the page table or pagedirectory entry, set the P flag, and invalidate the current page tableentry in the corresponding TLB along with all other entries in one orall of the TLBs. In some embodiments, the invalidation operation mayinvalidate TLB entries for other pages in addition to the one thattriggered the page fault exception. Additionally, processor 102 may alsoinvalidate a single TLB entry in a single TLB when the operating systemchanges a page table entry.

Reference is now made to FIG. 5, a flowchart of a method for enablingthe use of a larger page size from a fixed number of aligned smallerpages according to an embodiment of the invention. Embodiments of themethod may be used by, or may be implemented by, for example, computingsystem 100 of FIG. 1 or other suitable computing systems thatincorporate multiple page sizes. In some embodiments, the method of FIG.5 may be implemented by for example an operating system or otherexecution management software stored in memory 104 and running onprocessor 102. Additional or alternative software and/or hardwarecomponents of computing system 100 may be used.

As indicated in operation 502, an operating system or other executionmanagement software of for example computing system 100 may initialize alarger fixed page size by for example aligning or identity mapping theappropriate address bits corresponding to the page size beinginitialized across a number of consecutive page table entries for asmaller fixed page size such that the total memory so aligned is thesame as the larger page size. As used herein, identity mapped addressbits of a linear address may be identical to the corresponding bits in aphysical address. In this way, a fixed number of smaller pages may becombined into one larger page of a fixed size, the fixed size of thelarger page possibly being smaller than an even larger page sizesupported by the system, thereby adding an intermediate fixed page size.For example, 16 4 Kbyte page table entries may be aligned to form a 64Kbyte page size. To perform the initialization, address bits 12-15 maybe identity mapped across a group of 16 4 Kbyte pages such that in thefirst, second, third and sixteenth page these bits may have an entry of0000, 0001, 0010, and 1111 respectively. For all other bits of the pagetable entry, the operating system may write an identical entry for allsixteen 4 Kbyte page table entries corresponding to the 64 Kbyte page.When these page table entries are combined or aligned, the linearaddress of each page table entry may translate or correspond directly toan address in physical memory such as for example system memory 104. Insome embodiments initializing a 64 Kbyte page size may occur whencomputing system 100 starts up or upon a request for an additionalmemory allocation as need for example by an executing or startingapplication. Other events may also require initialization of a 64 Kbytepage size.

In operation 504, the operating system may set a previously reserved bitor other flag of a format such as format 340 of FIG. 3 in each of the 16aligned page table entries to indicate that computing system 100 orprocessor 102 of computing system 100 should cache the respective pagetable entry using a TLB sized for the larger page size. For example, a64 Kbyte TLB such as TLB 112 of FIG. 2 may be used to cache 64 Kbytepage table entries such as page table entry 262. Setting may include,for example, setting the value of a bit to one. Other flags orindicators than a single bit may be used. Bits other than reserve bitsmay be used.

Once the page table entries have been aligned and the reserved bits set,processor 102 may commence or continue execution (Operation 506).

In operation 508, the larger page may be deallocated, e.g. madeavailable for another use such that the smaller pages that are includedin the larger page are available for other operations in theiroriginally configured page size. For example, a 64 Kbyte page may bedeallocated to its originally configured 16 4 Kbyte pages. At thispoint, the reserved bit in each page table entry may no longer be set.In some embodiments, deallocation may include combining dirty and/oraccessed bits, e.g. page table entry bits that may indicate the memoryaccess or usage of the respective pages, across the 16 pages. Combiningmay include for example a logical OR operation such that if any one ofthe entries for the 16 pages has a bit that is set, all 16 entries aretreated as set. For example, if the dirty bit for the third entry isset, all 16 entries are treated as dirty. The result of combining may bethat if any of the pages are dirty or accessed, all 16 may written outto a nonvolatile memory.

Although the invention has been described herein with respect to 64Kbyte pages as 16 aligned 4 Kbyte pages, the invention is not limited inthis respect. Other page sizes may be provided by aligning other smallerpage sizes that may exist in a processor architecture. Embodiments ofthe invention may be used for creating a page size that is a power oftwo times larger than a first page size used to create a larger pagesize, for page sizes up to the next largest pre-existing page size. Forexample, a 1024 Kbyte page size may be provided as 16 aligned 64 Kbytepages with a corresponding designated bit being set in the appropriatepaging structure entries. Further, for a computing system having a 4Kbyte page size and a 2 Mbyte page size in a 64 bit architecture, anypage size that is a power of 2 greater than (e.g. a power of twomultiplied by) 4 Kbyte and less than 2 Mbytes may be so created. Othermultiples may also be used.

Other operations or series of operations may be used.

While the invention has been described with respect to a limited numberof embodiments, it will be appreciated that many variations,modifications and other applications of the invention may be made.Embodiments of the present invention may include other apparatuses forperforming the operations herein.

Embodiments of the invention may include a computer readable medium,such as for example a memory, a disk drive, or a Universal Serial Bus(USB) flash memory, including instructions which when executed by amulti-core processor, another processor, or another controller, maycarry out methods disclosed herein. Such apparatuses may integrate theelements discussed, or may comprise alternative components to carry outthe same operations.

It will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that the appendedclaims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fallwithin the true spirit of the invention.

1. A method comprising: initializing a fixed plurality of page tableentries for a fixed plurality of pages in a memory, each page having afirst page size, wherein a linear address for each page in each pagetable entry corresponds to a physical address and the fixed plurality ofpages are aligned; and setting a first bit in each of the fixedplurality of page table entries to a value indicating whether or not thefixed plurality of pages is to be treated as one combined page having asecond page size larger than the first page size.
 2. The method of claim1, wherein the page table entries have a length of 8 bytes and the firstpage size is 4 Kbytes.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the number ofpage table entries is 16, the first page size is 4 Kbytes, and thesecond page size is 64 Kbytes.
 4. The method of claim 1, comprisingcaching a page table entry for the page having the first page size in atranslation lookaside buffer (TLB) sized for the first page size andcaching a page table entry for the page having the second page size in aTLB sized for the second page size.
 5. The method of claim 1,comprising: treating all of the fixed plurality of pages as accessed ifa second bit in a page table entry for indicating whether or not a pagehas been accessed for one of the fixed plurality of pages has been set.6. The method of claim 4, comprising, if a TLB miss occurs, performing apage table walk for a linear address in a page of the second page size,said page table walk including at least determining if the page size isthe first page size or the second page size.
 7. The method of claim 1,comprising identity mapping the addressing bits corresponding to thesecond page size.
 8. The method of claim 1, comprising combining one ormore page table entry bits upon deallocating the second page.
 9. Anapparatus comprising a processor to access a memory via a paging systemhaving a first page size and one or more page tables, to initialize afixed plurality of page table entries for a fixed plurality of pages,wherein each page has the first page size and a linear address for eachpage in each page table entry corresponds to a physical address and thefixed plurality of pages are aligned, and to set a first bit in each ofthe fixed plurality of page table entries indicating whether or not thefixed plurality of pages is to be treated as one combined page having asecond page size larger than the first page size.
 10. The apparatus ofclaim 9, wherein the page table entries have a length of 8 bytes and thefirst page size is 4 Kbytes.
 11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein thenumber of page table entries is 16, the first page size is 4 Kbytes, andthe second page size is 64 Kbytes.
 12. The apparatus of claim 9, whereinthe processor is to cache a page table entry for the page having thefirst page size in a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) sized for thefirst page size and to cache a page table entry for the page having thesecond page size in a TLB sized for the second page size.
 13. Theapparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor is to treat all of the fixedplurality of pages as accessed if a second bit in a page table entry forindicating whether or not a page has been accessed for one of the fixedplurality of pages has been set.
 14. The apparatus of claim 12, whereinif a TLB miss occurs, the processor is to perform a page table walk fora linear address in a page of the second page size, said page table walkincluding at least determining if the page size is the first page sizeor the second page size.
 15. A system comprising: a bus; a memorycoupled to the bus and accessible by a paging system having a first pagesize and one or more page tables; and a processor coupled to the bus tocreate a second page having a second size, the second size larger thanthe first size, from a plurality of first pages having the first size,the processor to initialize a plurality of page table entries for theplurality of first pages, wherein each of the first pages has a linearaddress corresponding to a physical address and the plurality of firstpages are aligned, and the processor to set a first bit in each of theplurality of page table entries indicating whether or not the pluralityof pages is to be treated as the second page.
 16. The system of claim15, wherein the page table entries have a length of 8 bytes and thefirst page size is 4 Kbytes.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein thenumber of page table entries is 16, the first page size is 4 Kbytes, andthe second page size is 64 Kbytes.
 18. The system of claim 15, whereinthe processor is to cache a page table entry for the page having thefirst page size in a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) sized for thefirst page size and to cache a page table entry for the page having thesecond page size in a TLB sized for the second page size.
 19. The systemof claim 15, wherein the processor is to treat all of the plurality offirst pages as accessed if a second bit in a page table entry forindicating whether or not a page has been accessed for one of theplurality of first pages has been set.
 20. The system of claim 18,wherein if a TLB miss occurs, the processor is to perform a page tablewalk for a linear address in a page of the second page size, said pagetable walk including at least determining if the page size is the firstpage size or the second page size.